SOUTHPORT is ‘not wanted’ by Scousers voting to create a celebratory map of Liverpool.

SOUTHPORT is ‘not wanted’ by Scousers voting to create a celebratory map of Liverpool.

A poll, run by the Liverpool Daily Post to establish the city’s cultural and historical boundaries, suggests that 74 per cent of Liverpudlians want to exclude Southport from appearing on ‘The Liverpool Map’.

In an interview in the Southport Visiter last month, Southport’s pop pioneer Marc Almond had called for the resort to be included in the map – run as part of the city’s 2008 European Capital of Culture celebrations.

The Soft Cell singer said: “Liverpudlians have always visited Southport, to spend a day by the sea, even though it rarely comes in.

“Southport and Liverpool have remained a part of each other, separate yet kindred. Southport has had a lasting influence on me and I definitely think it is part of the Liverpool lineage.”

Bootle, in the south of the borough, is to be adopted as part of Liverpool for the map project, with 67.2 per cent of voters deciding it is part of the city.

David Cobham, leader of The Southport Party, said he was glad the town had been excluded from appearing on the map.

The pro-Lancashire group have called for a local referendum ahead of moves to include the town in a devolved Liverpool City Region.

Mr Cobham said: “The poll proves the point that whilst Southport and Liverpool are fine places with fine people, they have different priorities and do not mix.

“It’s obvious that Bootle is more aligned with Liverpool and it proves that since 1974 (when Southport became part of Sefton) we have been in a wrong union.”